For as long as he plies his trade in
England Luis Suarez will forever be abused with taunts of ‘racist’. The following is an objective view on why the
F.A we’re wrong to potentially ruin a players career with insufficient
evidence.
First of all, yes I am a Liverpool
fan. However, this isn’t about personal
loyalties or tribal point scoring. This
is about right and wrong and why the F.A and to an even greater extent, our
media in the United Kingdom have done Luis Suarez, Liverpool Football Club and
the general public a huge disservice in order to score points politically.
Before I go into some of the ins and
outs of the Suarez/Evra case it is important to acknowledge the landscape of
football in regards to racism when this case was investigated. Sepp Blatter, head of FIFA and about as well
liked by our F.A and media these days as Diego Maradona was in 1986, made some
inappropriate remarks that seemingly played down the obvious severity of racism
in our game when he claimed in November that ‘on the field of play sometimes you say something that is not
very correct, but then at the end of the game, the game is over and you have
the next game where you can behave better.”
Predictably, the English media and the F.A hit out at Blatter, demanding
his resignation and hammering him for downplaying the importance of fighting
racism. Over the following week a media
frenzy ensued about a remark that, while admittedly misguided, seemingly had no
malicious intent and was just the work of a fool rather than a malevolent
dictator. Indeed, Blatter’s comments
barely registered on the rest of the European footballing community and he duly
apologised for his insensitive remark but this single quote inadvertently helped
to seal Luis Suarez’ fate. The message
was clear from England, Blatter was trivialising racism and we weren’t going to
accept that. We are whiter than white over
here (excuse the expression) and we won’t be having any of that thank you very
much. It was yet another stick with which
to beat Blatter, the nemesis of England.
Thankfully
for the F.A, on October 15th just a few weeks prior to Sepp’s foot
in mouth comment, a run in between Luis Suarez and Patrice Evra had given
English football the perfect opportunity to show how anti racism it really
was. Patrice Evra initially claimed that
Luis Suarez had called him a “nigger” on ten occasions. A report was made to the F.A via Sir Alex
Ferguson and Manchester United after the game had ended and suddenly everyone
was rewinding their Sky plus to see if they could make out these disgusting
insults that Suarez had thrown Evra’s way.
No one found anything and for a long, long time the F.A did not even
charge Suarez which allowed people to believe that there was no proof and no
way to corroborate Evra’s claims.
However, if the F.A thought they had missed their opportunity to show
the world how moral they really were then they were wrong. They were about to be handed a loaded gun
from their prime target.
Luis
Suarez unwittingly condemned himself to forever being known as a racist when he
gave an interview back in Uruguay where he honestly and rather naively broke
his silence on the matter and explained what had happened between him and
Evra. He mentioned that he had called
Evra ‘a word his friends call him’ and was seemingly perplexed by Evra’s
reaction and accusation of racism. That
word was ‘negro’ which is used in Uruguay in many different ways when
addressing a black man or woman and is often used in affectionate or neutral
terms the way we use the word ‘mate’ or ‘lad’.
Suarez
should have known better. By that I
don’t mean by using that word, I mean that he should have known to keep his
mouth shut about what really happened on the pitch. By admitting he used the word ‘negro’ he gave
the F.A and our media something to get their teeth into.
If he had denied making any remark to Evra that made any reference to
his skin colour then the F.A could have done nothing. Because, here’s the brilliant fact that
underpins this whole affair....the ONLY piece of evidence the F.A have to
unequivocally prove Suarez used a term that they interpreted as racist is Suarez’
own honesty and admission of asking Patrice Evra ‘Porque, Negro?’ (why, black?).
That’s
right, despite the fact that it took over 2 months for the F.A to come to a
conclusion, that is the sole foundation that their whole argument is based
upon. There is no video footage that
supports Evra’s claims. None of the
officials on the field heard Suarez abuse Evra. None of Evra or Suarez’ team mates heard a
peep. No audio recordings provided any
evidence. However, the fact that Suarez
admitted to using a word that is used frequently in a none racist manner in the
language that the two players were conversing in allowed the F.A to ultimately
decide that he had used this word in a racist way on SEVEN occasions and justify
banning him for 8 matches.
The way
they reached this conclusion is quite staggering. I assume that most people haven’t read
through the 115 page report and know only what our media has regurgitated in
it’s own unique manner. If you asked
every person who has called and will call Luis Suarez a racist so and so why
they believe he is a racist I am convinced you will not get an answer with any
more substance than “because he was found guilty” or at a push “he admitted he
said negro”. The Football Association’s
ruling came down to one assertion, in the event of a lack of any hard evidence what
so ever they merely heard Suarez’ and Evra’s sides of the story and plumped for
the story that they believed to be more ‘plausible’.
Unsurprisingly but incorrectly they sided with Evra. Is it really fair to condemn a man of such a heinous
action and smear his reputation based on, as they call it in the report, ‘probability’? Frankly I find that immoral, but I digress...
Their
reasoning basically came down to the fact that when cross examined with
statements from Liverpool team mate Dirk Kuyt and Liverpool official Damien
Comolli, Suarez’ story wasn’t 100% consistent.
Comolli and Kuyt had offered a slightly different phrase than the one
Suarez claimed to have used. While the
F.A we’re correct to highlight these contrasting statements, they ignored two
key factors. First, Comolli barely
understands Spanish (exhibited clearly in his testimony) and surely that places
his own interpretation of events in more question than Luis Suarez'. Secondly, Dirk Kuyt and Luis Suarez converse
in Dutch, again things could quite easily be lost in translation as Mr. Kuyt
explains in his testimony. Either way,
it seems an incredible leap of faith to take that due to a slight difference in
the 3 testimonies it was acceptable to label Luis Suarez a racist for the rest of his
career. This becomes even more
incredible when you take into account how many times Evra’s story had changed.
Evra
initially reported to French media immediately after the match that Suarez had
called him a “nigger” ten times. When
his manager Sir Alex Ferguson and the player himself informed the referee after
the final whistle, it was claimed that Suarez had racially insulted Evra on
five occasions. By the time the hearing
was taking place and after going through a tape of the incident with the F.A on
three separate occasions (Suarez was never allowed to do this amazingly) Evra
settled on the fact that Luis Suarez had said the word ‘negro’ seven times and
not ‘nigger’ on ‘five’ or even ‘ten’ occasions.
To basically hang Luis Suarez on some inaccuracies from two non Spanish
speaking representatives of Liverpool Football Club while ignoring the glaring inconsistencies
in Patrice Evra’s statements indicates clear favouritism.
There
was a hell of a lot more bizarre justifying of the F.A’s decision in their report
, too. They insisted that during the game Patrice Evra was not unduly ‘wound up’
or aggressive. This is perhaps the most
ludicrous thing asserted in the report.
The United captain argued the coin toss before kick off, demanded a
yellow card for Liverpool player Stewart Downing in the first half by screaming
at the referee, had two separate altercations with the Liverpool crowd, received
a yellow card and had to be told to calm down in order not to get himself sent
off by team mate Ryan Giggs. To anyone
with a pair of eyes and a brain, Patrice Evra had a bee in his bonnet all day
and was aggressive from start to finish (indeed he started the argument with
Luis Suarez with the classy comment of ‘your sister’s pussy’ after Suarez had committed
a foul against him a few minutes earlier).
Yet the F.A actually draw the conclusion that he was not behaving in a
reckless or out of control manner at all.
Even Ryan Giggs statement to the panel mentioned that he had to calm
Evra down to prevent him getting a red card.
Again, staggering. As is the
glossing over of Evra trivialising racism by, upon receiving a yellow card,
telling the referee “you only booked me because I am black” as asserted by Mr.
Kuyt.
The
report is littered with these ‘findings’ that heavily stack the deck in Evra’s
favour and point to him being a ‘more credible witness’. For example, it points to an ‘aggressive act’
from Suarez that even Evra couldn’t recall, when the two clashed (Suarez
pinched Evra’s arm while they argued) that was pretty much irrelevant as such
things are common place in football, as anyone who has played the game will
know. I could go on and on about my gripes with the
report but if you require further reading on just why Suarez’ supporters are so
enraged, click on the following link for dozens of examples where the report is
picked apart.
That is
Liverpool fans showing up the F.A report for what it is. The vast majority are probably not educated in law and have no platform
to vent their astute findings to the masses.
They simply apply common sense in deconstructing a subjective and
unbalanced piece of information.
This is where the media comes into focus. I will post my thoughts on the way the media
have dealt with this case at a later time as I am aware that this ‘blog’ is
fast becoming an essay.
The last words, for now, come from the Official F.A report.
"First, this case is not about whether Mr Suarez is in fact a racist. Indeed, the
Commission will no doubt conclude that there are some indications that he is not.
For example, Mr Suarez is himself of mixed heritage, it seems clear that he has
experienced the diversity of life and it is plain from the materials submitted on his
behalf that he has done good work in the field of community relations. Moreover,
even Mr Evra says in his witness statement: "I don't think that Luis Suarez is racist"
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